Challenging a Conviction in Civil Proceedings
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201839906300501 |
| Published date | 01 October 1999 |
| Date | 01 October 1999 |
| Subject Matter | High Court |
High Court
Challenging a Conviction in Civil Proceedings
Jv
Oyston
[1999] 1 WLR
694
The defendant in these civil proceedings had been convicted of indecent
assault
and
rape and, in spite of the further evidence which he adduced
on appeal, that appeal was dismissed. The plaintiff in
the
present
proceedings sought damages from
her
assailant
and
in
her
statement
of claim set
out
the convictions of the defendant
and
his sentence of
imprisonment for five years. The defendant,
who
admitted the convic-
tion
and
sentence, nevertheless continued to deny the indecent assault
and
rape
and
sought to adduce once more the evidence on which he had
failed to have his convictions reversed
and
other evidence which dis-
credited the plaintiff. The plaintiff sought by summons to have the
defence struck
out
as an abuse of process, in that the admission of
the proposed evidence would in effect allow the defendant to re-litigate
the issue of guilt
and
that the defence as pleaded disclosed no reasonable
grounds on which to defend the action
and
was vexatious.
any
civil proceedings the fact that aperson has been convicted of
an
offence
shall be admissible in evidence for the purpose of proving that he
committed that offence, but (2) in any civil proceedings in which proof
of conviction is adduced, he shall be taken to have committed the
offence unless the contrary is proved.
The essence of the defendant's case was that his convictions
had
been
obtained on the basis that the present plaintiff was a naive
and
innocent
girl, whereas
the
later evidence showed that this was far from
the
case.
In
effect, the defendant's right to adduce this evidence, if established,
meant
that he would be re-litigating the issue of his guilt (as, indeed, the
production of such evidence on his appeal from conviction had, in effect,
done). The issue, therefore, was
whether
the plaintiff was right or wrong
in asserting that the adducing of such evidence would be an abuse of the
process of
the
court, since it necessarily entailed the re-litigation of
the process of the criminal courts.
It
was argued that this would be
contrary to the decision of the House of Lords in
Hunter
v
l-V,
Midlands
Chief
Constable
[1982J AC 529. That decision was said to be in effect a
general declaration of a rule of public policy that where there has been
adecision of a criminal court of competent jurisdiction, acollateral
attack on that decision cannot be made in civil proceedings initiated for
that
purpose.
It
is therefore clear that, had the defendant
been
the
plaintiff in these proceedings and had sought to question his guilt in this
way, his statement of claim would have to be struck
out
as an abuse of
process, unless entirely fresh evidence was being relied on. The issue
on
the present occasion, therefore, was
whether
the same principle applies
when
the collateral attack is made by the convicted person
when
he is
the defendant,
not
the plaintiff, in the subsequent civil proceedings.
389
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